Illinois baseball (7-11) completed its first home weekend of the season on Sunday, dropping the series finale after narrowly winning on Friday and Saturday.
“We were fortunate to win two games this weekend; we did not swing the bats well at all,” said head coach Dan Hartleb. “We’re fortunate we had very good pitching the first two games. Found a way to squeak one out in the first game; (Saturday) came up with a couple of big home runs and then (Sunday) we got outpitched, outhit, and we didn’t field very well, so it’s tough to win games when you do that.”
Coming off a 7-6 road loss to the Indiana State Sycamores, the Illini hosted a three-game series with the Screaming Eagles from Southern. Senior right-handed pitcher Jack Crowder took the mound on Friday and turned in a career-high seven innings, giving up one run and four hits while striking out five batters. Senior right-handed pitcher Korey Bunselmeyer earned the win as a reliever. Friday’s game was a pitchers’ duel, with each team recording five hits in the 2-1 Illini victory.
The Screaming Eagles scored first in the second inning and maintained the lead until the Illini generated two clutch runs in their final at-bat. A passed ball allowed the tying run to score before freshman left fielder Cameron Chee-Aloy ripped the ball up the middle to bring in the walk-off run.
On Saturday, Illinois jumped on the board first with a two-run homer from redshirt junior first baseman Drake Wescott, who leads the team with five on the season. Junior right fielder Ryan Moerman went yard in the second inning with a man on base putting the Illini up 4-0. Southern Indiana scored one run in the fourth inning and four in the fifth to take the lead, as sophomore right-handed pitcher Jake Swartz was relieved by sophomore lefty Sam Reed who earned the win.
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The Illini surged back on top when graduate student catcher Jacob Schroeder sent one out to score two more runs and put them up 6-5. Securing the game by keeping the Screaming Eagles scoreless in the remaining frames were bullpen arms redshirt junior right-handed pitcher Ben Plumley and graduate student right-handed pitcher Joe Glassey.
The Illinois bats fell asleep on Sunday, as Southern Indiana reached a 6-0 lead in the top of the seventh inning. A three-run bomb off the scoreboard from graduate student second baseman Brody Harding cut the deficit in half in the bottom of the frame. The Illini could not plate any more runs as the Screaming Eagles scored once in the eighth and ninth innings, leading to an 8-3 final score.
Illinois baseball stays home to face Bradley on Tuesday at 6 p.m. before kicking off conference competition with a three-game series at Indiana next weekend.
